Peggy Preheim: Little Black Book

Little Black Book presents the first
comprehensive survey of Peggy Preheim’s hauntingly delicate work. Preheim
derives inspiration from both personal and historic sources. For her drawings,
she uses photographs, often vintage and frequently anonymous, as well as
objects (bees or flowers, for example) as source material for her imagery.
Preheim works at a small, upright drafting table in her house. The tabletop is
neat and tidy, and her tools—precisely sharpened pencils—are lined up in order
of size. Her drawings are created directly onto the final paper, without
preliminary sketches or mechanical reproduction or projection.

Preheim’s sculptures combine handmade elements—the unfired white
clay figures—with materials found in thrift stores and online, such as the
antique glass or the dolls and doll’s clothes. Her photography is based almost
entirely on her previously made sculpture. The photographs and sculptures exist
independently, although the photographs provide an additional layer of meaning
to certain sculptures.

The circular nature of Preheim’s creative
process—drawings based on photographs, photographs based on sculptures—finds
its parallel in the content or subject matter of her work. Frequently evoking
the past, childhood, nostalgia, and loss, as well as sexual awakening, Preheim’s
work has many implied narratives, which are left to the viewer to fulfill. At
the core of the work is memory, sometimes collective, usually intensely
personal. Her work is enigmatic and poetic in its content, and always
beautifully and meticulously executed.

Harry
Philbrick

Peggy Preheim: Little Black Book was
organized by the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut,
and curated by its director, Harry Philbrick. The exhibition was previously on
view there and at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma.